HESPI arranged Twinning Relationship within IGAD Supreme Audit institutions. This was follow-up activity identified during HESPI’s scoping mission to South Sudan. Various capacity gaps of financial integrity institutions were identified during the scoping mission. One of the recommendations made was arranging twining relationship between financial integrity institutions in the sub-region for selected relevant staff from counterpart South Sudan institutions. So, HESPI conducted an intensive three weeks hands-on training of senior and middle level audit staff from South Sudan and Somalia through Twining Arrangement with the Office of the Federal Auditor General of the Government of Ethiopia (FDRE), notable capacity building work has been done by way of audit skill transfer in core audit areas relevant for post conflict and fragile nations. The audit staff from the Audit Chamber of South Sudan and Federal Audit office of Somalia were trained on required legal and administrative steps to setup functional supreme audit institution in a post conflict situation, Public resources audit approaches and methodologies, reporting relations of the supreme audit institutions with the parliament; and through practical sessions with the FDRE audit entities, they learnt about the required tools to conduct professional audit, how to conduct consolidated fund and performance auditing, familiarized themselves with INTOSAI’s[1] ISSAIs standards and methods of implementing Regulatory Audit Manual (RAM), etc. After the training, HESPI received feedback from the trainees in the target countries confirming us that they already started rolling out the new skills in their respective audit institutions through training other audit staff and instituting the various tools and methods. The effort of adopting the new skills and training more staff for wider outreach and impact is believed to add to the effectiveness and efficiencies of the two audit institutions
[1] These abbreviations are elaborated as International Organization of Supreme Audit Institution (INTOSAI) and International Standards of Supreme Audit Institutions (ISSAIs).